Japan

Geopolitically, in the context of a threatening Asian security environment, the Second US-Japan-India Trilateral Ministerial Dialogue of the Foreign Ministers of the three nations was held in New York on September 18 2017 on the side-lines of the UNGA Session acquires added significance.

Japan’s geopolitical and strategic imperatives for nuclear weapons were strongly existent in 2002 and highlighted by me then and when contextually reviewed in 2017 against the backdrop of China-generated North Korea nuclear flashpoint makes a Japanese nuclear weapons arsenal “Inescapable” for Japan’s survival as an Emerged Power.

Japanese PM Shinzo Abe’s visit to India on September13-14 2017 though officially as part of the Annual Summits between the Prime Ministers of Japan and India emerges as geopolitically significant against the contextual Asian security environment muddied by China itself and its nuclear proxies in East Asia and South Asia.

Over the decades the People’s Republic of China has sold to the world the narrative that it is a self-contained power and has no ambition of coveting territories of other nations. This is far from the truth. China in the past had tried to expand colonialism over other countries like Vietnam and Indonesia. The only problem was they were unable to hold on to the territories that they tried to colonise.

Japan –India Special Strategic Partnership which stood further concretised with Indian Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Japan in mid-November 2016 has been a pointed eyesore for China going by the statements that emanated from China both prior and after the visit.

Asia’s evolving geopolitics places a high premium on Indian imperatives to enhance strategic bonds to a higher plane during Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Japan on November11-12 2016 for the Annual Summit Dialogue.